Family Fun Night - Dumbo Style

For the last year, we've been doing Family Fun Nights (usually Disney themed) once a month or so.  We've just started ramping back up because -- *drumroll* -- we have a trip to Disney World planned for September!  For now, we're doing every other week; as our vacation draws nearer, we'll move to once a week.  It's an opportunity to do something special as a family, to be silly and childish, and to remember past vacations and to get excited about future vacations.

We've done a Dumbo-themed fun night before, but since we had it checked out from the library, we decided to do it again.  First, we strung cheap plastic bunting all over the kitchen.  It was a little bit overwhelming, but fun.

While dinner was cooking, I hung up a plastic photo-op thingy in one of the doorways.  The kids had a great time posing.  Here's one of the more 'normal' shots they got.

We also did lots and lots of circus themed temporary tattoos.  Lachlann didn't want any, but all the other kids were fully decorated.  Doug and I may or may not have gotten in on the action with some tattoos (privately applied) in naughty places.

We let the kids have soda for dinner - a rare treat.  Colwyn wanted root beer while the rest of the kids opted for orange soda.  Some festive straws made it even more exciting.

Dinner was 'fancy hot dogs'.  There's a restaurant in Rockport called Top Dog that's a family favorite.  They have amazing hot dogs with all sorts of different toppings, in combinations named after dog breeds.  When we start craving Top Dog but can't make it there (like in the winter), we do our own.  Here's our version of the 'bad dog' - sauteed onions, bacon, and cheese sauce.  Yum.

 After dinner, we put the movie on and had popcorn and animal crackers for snacks.  We'd gotten those frozen soft pretzels but never got around to eating them.  We watched a bunch of the special features after the movie, too.  All in all, it was a great success!  Next up for Family Fun Night is Princess and the Frog, since all the stores have Mardi Gras decorations.

Let There Be Light!

Our kitchen at the new house features a huge bay window.  It faces southwest and lets in so much light that it's a bit blinding, to be honest.  Our kitchen table is right in front of it and on sunny days, mealtimes require sunglasses.  Obviously, I had to put up some curtains.  I thought something light would be best because I don't want to darken the room up too much.  I saw this on Pinterest and thought it would suit our old farmhouse quite well.  The curtain 'rod' was easy to make - we got some 1"x3"s at Home Depot, painted them gray, added some crackle coat, then a nice coat of white.  The single-prong hooks were a pain in the ass to find, but I managed to get them from Amazon.  Screw them in, mount the board to the wall, and voila!

Fora while, the curtains let us use the window ledge as a place to store junk (half-finished Etsy orders, the kids' art projects, miscellaneous electronic devices, etc), but something had to be done.  This window was just begging for some houseplants.  After a trip to IKEA where I got a nice little greenhouse and two hanging planters, we were almost there.  The kids and had a fantastic time at the nursery picking out all sorts of plants in the middle of a snowstorm.  When we first brought everything home, the window ledge looked like a jungle - but we've since repotted things and moved a lot of the plants into other parts of the house.  This is what we have on the ledge now.

Look at that cute little greenhouse!  I've never had succulents before, but they look wonderful and exotic.

These are the flowers that Fiona picked out - pink, of course!

Lachlann chose yellow, and they look so sunny.  You can see how close we are to the road in this photo, too.  It's not ideal, but not a big deal since it's just a rental.  We've all agreed that when we start house hunting next year, we can't be on a busy road.

Here's a wider view.  The tall plant is a hibiscus.. I didn't take a better picture because the ride home and/or the repotting procedure made it think it was time for a dormant period, so it doesn't look so great right now.  I read up on it because I've never cared for a hibiscus before.. so hopefully I won't kill it.  I didn't realize I didn't get two of the other plants in the shot - an African violet and something else blue that Colwyn picked out.  We also picked up a plant stand from IKEA that's now in our living room, holding the terrarium (with new plants because they got neglected in the move), ivy, and a sensitive plant (forget the real name!).  And in our bathroom upstairs we have another plant keeping the air oxygenated.  I'd forgotten, like I do every winter, how happy plants make me.  It's so much more homey here with our new additions.

Oh, and for good measure, a picture of one of our cats, Milky Way.  It's so rare for me to catch them being still and in good light!

Why All Parenting Fads Are Wrong

Parenting is tough (how's that for the understatement of the century?).  You feel the weight of raising these helpless little babies into healthy, happy adults, knowing that at any moment you could say or do something that will later be recounted in your grown child's therapy sessions.  You might make a mistake that your child will use to blame you for all her flaws and failures - and what's worse, she could even be justified!  There's so much pressure to do everything just right.

Naturally, when there's such high stakes, we'll want to turn to experts for help.  Surely there's someone out there, smarter than us, who has figured this all out.  If we just find his program and follow it exactly, our kids will turn out perfectly.

I recently had a conversation where the new parenting fad called RIE came up.  I had never heard of it before, and for a moment, I got excited when I heard it explained as, "you respect babies and children, and treat them like adults."  But as we got further into the conversation, some of the ideas and advice started to sound wrong to me, so I looked it up for myself.  The RIE website actually sounds pretty good.  It touts "basic trust in the child," encouraging parents to give "time for uninterrupted play," "freedom to explore and interact," and that parents should "allow the child to become an active participant rather than a passive recipient."  The only problem I saw from the actual RIE website is that parents are called 'educarer' - which immediately makes me lose some respect for the philosophy.

Then I went further and read a Vanity Fair article about the parenting trend.  The article starts with advice I can fully get behind - talk to your children like adults.  Give them your undivided attention.  Stop paying attention to your phone and pay attention to your kids.  Yes!  I agree, totally.  But then it goes on to say, 

Bouncers are discouraged on the principle that they are disrespectful to a baby’s true emotions, as the object is to make him zone out and stop annoying you. RIE is philosophically opposed to anything that disrespects a baby, including not only sippy cups and high chairs but also baby gyms, baby carriers like Björns, baby swaddles, and baby walkers, which Gerber, who had quite a way with words, called “a moving prison."

Well - I can sort of see some of that, though I think the reasoning behind it is flawed.  Babies shouldn't be left alone for long periods of time in bouncers, swings, etc.  The the article also goes on to say,

 “Children don’t need toys,” says Solomon. “Almost all of the toys at RIE can be found in somebody’s cupboard.” No rattles either. According to Gerber, “Rattles are an adult idea: you pick up something, and it makes noise. Why does it make noise? Because some adult put something into something.” No mobiles. “Mobiles are intrusive—the infant has no choice. Who chose the mobile? An adult.” No pacifiers. “The pacifier is a plug,” Gerber once wrote. “It does stop a child from crying, but the question is, Does an infant have a right to cry?” 

And that's when a good premise (treat your children with respect) goes too far.  In trying so hard to treat children with respect, like adults.. they're forgetting that children aren't actually adults.  Babies have an actual need to suck, whether it's on a pacifier or a breast.  If you're not willing to let your infant use you as a pacifier, and you can't give him an actual pacifier when he needs one, how is that respecting his need?  I don't know anyone who has been able to make a child suck on a pacifier when he doesn't want to - at least, I never could with my kids.  If they didn't want to suck on the damn thing, they wouldn't.  Babies cry, yes, and they have that right.  But a cry is a sign of distress, and we have the right to try to figure out why our children are in distress - do they need to suck on something?  Give them a nipple - real or fake - or even a clean finger.  Is the baby bored, tired of looking at you all day?  Try a toy, or a bouncy seat, or a play gym.

Bouncy seats and play gyms are useful because babies need visual stimulation - but their eyesight isn't fully developed.  A young baby can't just sit in your lap and look all around a room, look at that fascinating painting you have hung up on the wall over there - they can't see that far.  A bouncy seat or a play gym puts interesting objects at the right distance for your baby to focus on.  Don't worry about them getting bored - they'll do this amazing thing to let you know they've had enough - they'll cry.  And that's when you pick them up and see what you can do to meet their needs.

But the fact that RIE parenting has some flaws isn't surprising or unexpected.  Every parenting style, fad, philosophy, etc has flaws.  It's inevitable, because not every parent, child, and combination thereof are alike.  Not everyone will respond to techniques or advise the same way.  Some of my favorite philosophies advise things that I just can't stand.  Montessori is wonderful, but what about the child who loves to dress-up and act out elaborate, creative imaginative stories?  Waldorf is beautiful and lovely, but what about the child who teaches himself to read 'too soon' and loves math and science, always asking for more?  Attachment parenting is so nurturing, but what about the mother who can't make enough milk - must she feel like a failure?  I think homeschooling is one of the best choices we've ever made - but would I refuse to let one of my kids go to school if he really wanted?  Of course not.

The problem here is when people choose a particular approach and follow it dogmatically.  They turn off their brains and give up their responsibility to be the best parent they can be - which means thinking critically about what works best in each circumstance, and also following their instincts.  Our instincts are there for a reason - for the survival of the species.  And yet we also have the responsibility to question our instincts - because sometimes they come from wrong place (a parent who was spanked as a child will instinctively do the same thing to their children).  Parenting is hard and the idea that someone out there will magically come up with the perfect way to do it that will work 100% of the time is just crazy.  It's tempting because it takes the responsibility and thus the blame off of us.  If something goes wrong, we can say, "It's not our fault!  We did it just how the book told us to!"  There is no easy answer.  We will make mistakes, it's inevitable - but using our heads and thinking for ourselves is a step in the right direction.  As is taking the one useful thing RIE parenting says - treat your children with respect, as people you care about, not as annoyances or burdens.

Children's Museum of New Hampshire

We are now proud members of the Children's Museum of New Hampshire.  This little gem is in Dover, about 15 minutes from our new house.  We haven't been to a children's museum in a long, long time (the one in Boston was just too inconvenient, and we had a traumatic parking experience that really soured us on the place).  I wasn't sure if Colwyn and Lachlann would enjoy it, being on the slightly older side, but everyone had a fantastic time.

Here's Colwyn sailing a boat in the Cochecosystem exhibit.  The Cocheco is the river that flows smack next to the museum, and their exhibit on the natural ecosystem and industry surrounding the river was really fun.

One of Niall's favorite exhibits was the Dino Detective one.  Anything with goggles and tools is a hit with him. Here he is getting ready to dig up some dinosaur bones.

And here is Fiona comparing herself to a Triceratops femur.  The T. Rex's femur is behind her.  She actually really liked the exhibit, too, and checked out the educational stuff I'd expected her to skip.

One of the biggest hits, by far, was the Adventures in Travel exhibit.  This consisted of a huge green screen, two big TVs, and lots and lots of dress-ups and props.  It was super cool, and I anticipate Doug having fun with this exhibit when he gets a chance to tag along.

I was really impressed with Mindball.  Colwyn and Lachlann thought it was fun, but not quite as cool as I thought it was.  Basically, you put on a headband with electrodes on it, and the game reads your brain waves.  The object is to move a ball (in that tube on the table) into the other person's goal.  The ball moves towards the player who is more agitated - so to win, all you have to do is relax more than your opponent.

The boys also spent a fair amount of time in the giant yellow submarine.  I didn't get a chance to check out what all of the stations in there did (it was pretty crowded, despite how the picture below looks).  They did have a sonar station which 'ping'ed' out of a little window - pretty cool.

We didn't get a chance to check out everything there, even though we were there for over two hours.  I anticipate spending a fair amount of time at the museum, especially during the winter months (and probably hot summer days, too).  

Downside to an Old House

One of the downsides to living in a really old house--or maybe just this house in particular--is the lack of storage space in the kitchen.  It's not a small kitchen, don't get me wrong.  It's actually quite big, and there's a narrow pantry off the kitchen which has a second, deep sink, dishwasher, and more cabinets.  The kids think it's funny when I ask them to fetch something from the 'other kitchen' or sometimes 'the little kitchen'.  My father thinks it's weird that I don't just call it a pantry, but that's how we roll.

But regardless of how much storage we should have in a kitchen this size, the point is that we actually don't have much at all.  We have one - ONE! - upper cabinet.. and it's half-sized at that.  We do have a really tall pantry-type cabinet (about 18" wide), but the problem there was that even though it's six or seven feet tall, there were only two shelves in it.  Great use of space, right?  As far as bottom cabinets go, we have three regular cabinets, a narrow cookie-sheet type cabinet, a half-size cabinet, and a weird cabinet in front of the chimney which is about the depth of a medicine cabinet.  Oh, and one of those pull-out ones that can hold cans.  Oh, and the obligatory under-the-sink cabinets.

We're coming from a house that, despite its many imperfections, had an enormous amount of cabinets.  Seven full size upper cabinets, plus the cabinets above the fridge and microwave.  Four big lower cabinets, plus a stack of drawers in place of another cabinet.  Oh, and a ton of counter space, too.  So we're kind of floundering here.  We got some MDF cut to make extra shelves in the tall pantry cabinet, that was a no-brainer.  But there's nowhere to store our dishes, about half the food storage we're used to, and our big-ish appliances are vying for space with our pots and pans.  We managed to find space in a cabinet for the crockpot and the food processor, but the toaster oven, Keurig, and stand mixer are all squeezed onto a counter that's about 24" long.

We did come up with a few solutions.  Next to the window in the little kitchen is wide open wall space.  Why they didn't put a cabinet here, I don't know.. but we put shelves.  We tossed almost all of our mugs and miscellaneous cups, bowls, and plates.  Bye-bye, sippie cups!  This is pretty much it for our dishes now.  (Okay, I stashed some extra bowls and our Disney mugs on the top shelf of the tall cabinet).  I actually really like the pasta/rice/etc in nice jars, it looks cool.  The problem there is that I have to get a step-stool if I want anything from that shelf.

One of our other problems was storage for our spices.  We have a lot.  Who doesn't, right?  Anyway - this is our one upper cabinet.  It's next to the stove, so it seemed like a perfect place to set up one of those magnetic under-the-cabinet spice thingies you see on Pinterest.

I could say that we did it perfectly on the first try.  I don't have to tell you how the metal we glued to the bottom of the cabinet wasn't magnetic, or that one magnet wasn't strong enough to hold up a full spice jar (we tried on the underside of the microwave, since the metal isn't magnetic).  I also don't have to tell you that when I hot-glued magnets to the metal, so the magnets on the caps would have something to stick to, that I didn't account for the polarity and that most of the bottles insisted on facing label-side-in.

Nope, I did it just right on the first try.

The Raum Homestead Has Moved!

Well, we finally did it.  The weekend after Thanksgiving, we packed up the house and moved about 50 miles north, to Berwick, Maine.  It's a rental - we decided that it would be better to try out the area and the type of house before committing to a purchase.  Our new home is a old farmhouse, built in about 1880.  There's a huge barn, and it's sited on 13 acres.  We're right off a busy road, which is good for now but something we'll try to avoid when we buy.

But boy, does this house have character!  I've never lived in a house this old and while I loved the idea, I wasn't sure how much I'd like it in practice.  It's only been a month, but so far I love it!  The kids think it's fantastic, too.  They love the double stairs, the little nooks and crannies, and they can't wait for the spring so they can explore the property more.  For right now, they're having fun sledding down the hill right next to the driveway.

One of the very first things we did was get our Christmas tree.  Traditionally, we decorate for Christmas during Thanksgiving weekend, and I didn't want to let our move shorten our holiday season.  We compromised by going to a local tree stand and choosing a pre-cut tree - poor Doug was too exhausted and sore from moving everything.

You can see the wide plank floors in that shot.  They're throughout the house, but covered up in some of the rooms.  They're exposed in the living room, master bedroom, the landing off of the littles' room, and the boys' bedroom.  In the living room, you can see through to the basement between some of the boards.  The living room floor is pretty beat up, but the floors in the bedrooms are shiny and so smooth to walk on.  Here's a close-up from the living room:

While we're at it, let's look at some other Christmas decorating.  I'd always wanted a staircase that I could put a garland on, and here we have one!  Unfortunately, Niall loves picking the berries off of it.  I find them throughout the house.

We put a tiny, very cheap, fake Christmas tree on the landing outside of the bedroom that Fiona and Niall share.  It's actually a pretty big space, and we have all the toy kitchen stuff set up there.  It works well because all of Fiona's dolls and their dress-ups are in their bedroom.  Anyway, we got the little star and the skirt from Target, and picked up their Disney ornament advent 'calendar'.  The ornaments are little tins with Disney characters on them, and we filled them with candy to share each night.  The door in the picture is the walk-up attic.  Love it so much more than our old attic with its creaky ladder.

Here's a quick picture of Niall's bed.  They both have a lot more blankets on their beds now, as the room is pretty cool.  The thermostat is in our room which is always warm, and I think between that and the (poorly insulated?) skylight and being tucked under the eaves makes for a chilly room.  The first night we were tucking them into bed, Fiona was checking out the walls.. she said, "Mom, why is the ceiling dripping?"  I guess it does look like the ceiling is dripping down onto the walls.

The house has got all these cool, old touches, like this doorknobs throughout.  I wish our landlord (or whoever) had been a little more careful when painting, but oh well.

And next to the kitchen door is this old timer.  The property used to be a working farm, complete with a spot-light-lit sign out front.  We think this old timer went to those lights.  For now, we just set our keys on top of it.

It's pretty funny.. if you Google our address, you find old photos of people having sleigh rides here and stuff.  The barn is cool but kind of depressing.  The stalls still have names over them, and it makes me wonder about the people (and animals) who lived here before.  There's no escaping the history of this house.  Here's the view from the window above our kitchen sink:

We're still settling in and getting used to the area, but so far we love it.  It's a little hard on us only having one car because during the week, we're either stuck at home or stuck back in Massachusetts if we drive Doug to work.  I'm really looking forward to getting to explore the area more, though.

Indoor Gardening

Over this past spring and summer, I've come to realize how much I benefit from being outside and connecting with nature.  Just sitting out back on the deck watching the kids play is great, but actually interacting with nature - walking barefoot in the grass, lying under the tree and looking up at the branches, tending to our garden, making our yard attractive to wildlife - that brings things to a whole 'nother level.  I'm a much happier, more sane person when I can do those things.

Unfortunately, we live in Massachusetts, and those opportunities are rapidly running out.  To be honest, I'm a little apprehensive about this winter and being shut off from anything green.  So I started searching Pinterest and the Google for information about houseplants and indoor gardening.  I've tried having some house plants before, but it's never worked out too well.. mostly because of a lack of information on my part.  This time, I'm vowing to do it right and not just wing it.

I took the kids out to Kanes, a local nursery that's like the Walmart of nurseries.  But you know what?  Everything I've ever gotten there has done really well.  We had a blast in the greenhouse picking out plants and admiring the sleeping kitties tucked away in little nooks.  And we came home with these beauties:

Check out the texture on that Pilea!  How cool are those leaves?

And look at the gorgeous green and pink foliage on the Fittonia!  It almost reminds me of watermelon.  So pretty.

And look at the leaf on this.. plant!  Yes, I lost the little plant label thingy.  Oh, had I tricked you with my clever plant-name-dropping?  Well, hey.. whatever its name is, it's lovely.

I got the Aralia mostly for height, but its leaves are variegated, too, so that's a bonus!  It looks so delicate.

We also grabbed some potting mix (nothing organic here, since we're not eating any of these babies) and some horticultural charcoal, since there won't be any drainage holes in the planters.

You may have noticed the aloe off to the side in the group shot.  I had plans for other plants to be grouped together in a giant glass terrarium, but the aloe has different needs so I picked up this cute little planter from Michael's.  I want plants in each room, and I figured aloe is perfect for the kitchen.

I filled the bottom with some charcoal...

Put my aloe in, packed some potting soil around the edges, and voila!  Isn't she lovely?  By the way, yes, I was doing this all on my dining room table.  These plants all need to stay out of direct sun and I figured if I brought these all outside to plant, I'd probably get pulled away (hello, four children!) and leave them out there too long.

Now for the terrarium!  Eee!  I have to say, this project was a little more fidgety and difficult than I was expecting.  Step one:  pour charcoal into giant glass terrarium.  Step two:  clean the glass.  And again.

Once the glass was somewhat clear of dust, I put a layer of potting soil down and set my plants inside.  It became apparent right away that one plant (the mysterious nameless one) was not going to fit.  They look so tiny in the greenhouse, but huge inside the terrarium!

After the plants are in place, then fill in with potting soil around the edges and in between the plants.  You don't want to put in a ton of potting soil first and try to dig holes, that just wouldn't work.  Not that this way was a piece of cake, but still.  Once everything is firmly planted, get out your sheets of moss.  Wait, you don't happen to have sheets of moss just lying around your house?  You can get this stuff at Michael's and AC Moore.

Tear off pieces and cover up the bare soil sort of like you'd use mulch.  You'll probably need to wet it to get it to stay put - I did.  If you have some little pebbles or rocks, you can add those for decoration, too.  You should end up with something like this:

Okay, so I may have gotten a little tired of trying to clean the glass, and there might still be some smudges of soil on it.  But isn't it beautiful?